Arizona ‘BUYcott’ organizer: ‘ID-ing everybody’ will make the ‘illegal criminals disappear like cockroaches.’
Today, the Arizona Republic reported that “the exodus of illegal and legal immigrants predicted by some as a result of Arizona’s tough new immigration law is expected to hurt a variety of businesses that directly and indirectly cater to immigrant populations.” If all of Arizona’s undocumented immigrants “disappeared,” the state could lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs. Rather than worrying about the economic effects of the law itself, Tea Party Nation launched the separate “National Arizona BUYcott” campaign last month at the Winning Back America Conference, which was headlined by Liz Cheney, Fred Thompson, and Sarah Palin. Gina Loudon, the St. Louis tea party supporter who credits herself with coming up the buycott idea, has said “the goal is to render boycotts ineffective.” The personal financing website, mint.com, has estimated that Arizona’s fragile tourism industry has already lost $6-10 million in cancellations since the bill was signed into law.The rule of law is certainly important - once in a while when it is convenient wedge conservatives find a law of two they like. In this case - during the slow recovery of a bad recession, caused primarily by Republican economic policies that shipped jobs to China and ran up the largest debt in the nation's history - they hand off a bonus prize to Arizona - the loss of almost $12 billion dollars. Yep, these conservatives are patriots all right, we just need to find out what country they are patriots of.
